for MS
She gave me an hour.
Since then, every minute
has grown from the soil
of that time.
She gave me silence.
It was the wisest teaching.
She did not know me.
She deeply understood my heart.
There was a time
when she, too,
was met with unthinkable loss.
Now she knows
to say the name
of the one who is gone.
She knows not to fix.
She knows the gift
of being seen.
She asked for nothing
in return.
Over a year later,
I remember how she listened
with her eyes.
I remember the generosity
of her gaze.
She lit a candle for my child,
a golden light
on a bed of amethyst.
With that flame,
she has lit hundreds more
through my hand.
Sometimes I wonder
where her flame began,
I think of all the hands
lighting all the candles.
How beautiful that light.
How far we have come
from the dark we have known.